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The Best of Both Worlds
Disheartened follows a woman living a separate life in 1860 and 2020, remembering everything as she drifts between the two, struggling to protect the people she loves in two different centuries. How did the concept of E.V.E. first develop?
The concept of E.V.E. (Essence Voyager Era ― the inherited gift of having the ability to live two parallel lives on two separate planes of existence as the soul travels nightly – essentially falling asleep on one plane and awakening to a new day on a new plane) came about due to a strange dream I had in the summer of 2009. I immediately started writing the first book in the E.V.E. series, Essence. After it was published in 2011, it grew into a series of four books that centered on Jocelyn (Sidney’s younger sister) and Jackson’s relationship. The Spirit Quest series is a spinoff of the original series, except this series focuses on Sidney’s experience with E.V.E.
Sidney carries the memories of two different lives. What was the greatest challenge in writing her perspective?
The greatest challenge with this particular character and period was researching from both perspectives (North and South) for the 1860 era and trying to offer a varying perspective of the 2020/Covid era experience, which we all lived through.
Foreknowledge plays a central role in the novel. How would you respond to the question of whether knowing the future is a gift or a burden?
Different members of different families who have inherited the gift (or curse) of E.V.E. have expressed their opinions of it. Some believe it to be a gift that allows them to experience the best of both worlds. Others feel it is a curse because despite knowing what the future holds, they are almost helpless to stop it in any meaningful way.
What lies ahead for the Spirit Quest series?
The third installment in the series, Foreshadowed, is due to be released later this year. The span of the novel covers the day after the 1860/2020 presidential elections through the first shots fired at Fort Sumter. It focuses on the personal challenges Sidney faces with the global pandemic, extended family pressure, and navigating increasing political division that is tearing apart the country in both of her lives.
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Gifted or cursed with the inherited ability of E.V.E., Sidney is forced into the inconceivable ― her 1860 self-watches on the eve of the American Civil War as the Northerners and Southerners dismantle the fabric of the nation. Whereas her 2020 self-witnesses the extreme Progressives and Liberals under the guise of the Democrat umbrella shred away the decency of the American Culture on a world-wide stage and making the USA the laughingstock of the globe.
Sidney is heartbroken watching everything her loved ones and countrymen from her other life fought to preserve be undone by a minute mindless minority of entitled fanatics and a political party so hell-bent on spreading violence and hate, they would rather burn the nation to the ground than relinquish power.
But what can she do? Can one small voice change the mind of millions with hate in their heart? Can she find her way back to the solace she once treasured in both her lives?
Disheartened
A.L. Waddington’s Disheartened, the second book in the Spirit Quest Series, follows Sidney as she lives two parallel lives 160 years apart. In 2020 Boston, she and Landon face medical school, hospital work, the COVID-19 pandemic, political unrest, and a painful family loss. In 1860, she is married to physician Keifer, gives birth to their son, visits his family in Savannah, and travels to Chicago as the nation moves toward civil war. Through the inherited gift of E.V.E., Sidney remembers both worlds and struggles with the desire to protect people whose futures she already knows.
I liked the alternating chronology because the two periods reflect each other without feeling identical. Both are marked by fear, social division, and families trying to preserve ordinary life while larger events close in. The domestic scenes give the novel much of its texture: shared meals, hospital shifts, childbirth, letters, road trips, and quiet conversations between couples. Sidney’s grief over Nicholas is especially effective because he connects her two lives, and his death leaves her emotionally unmoored.
The novel is also strongly political. Its characters debate COVID restrictions, race, elections, slavery, taxation, secession, and Lincoln’s role in the coming war. These views are presented from a distinctly conservative perspective, and readers will need to be comfortable with that approach. At times, the political dialogue slows the story and makes several characters sound alike. The book is strongest when those beliefs produce personal consequences, especially in Keifer’s divided loyalties and Sidney’s confrontation with the father who abandoned her.
I’d recommend Disheartened to readers of historical fiction, time-slip fantasy, family saga, political fiction, and romance. Its divided-life premise recalls Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, though Waddington focuses more on parallel families and foreknowledge. Disheartened is ultimately about having two homes and knowing neither can ever be safely left behind.
Pages: 442 | ASIN : B0GR9PWSL2
